The great liberaliser: Manmohan Singh dies at 92
As PM between 2004 and 2014, Manmohan Singh instituted a string of social protection schemes that boosted rural wages and bolstered marginalised communities.
Manmohan Singh, a soft-spoken scholar of economics, who defeated poverty with education to rise to the highest echelon of politics, and transformed the Indian economy by unshackling growth as finance minister before becoming the country’s first Sikh prime minister, died in New Delhi on Thursday night. He was 92.

Singh served with distinction as the deputy chief of the erstwhile Planning Commission and governor of the Reserve Bank of India before completing a landmark tenure as a Union finance minister who unveiled watershed reforms in 1991 that inaugurated India’s journey as a major world economy. The country’s 14th prime minister is survived by his wife, Gursharan Kaur, and three daughters Upinder Singh, Daman Singh, and Amrit Singh.
“With profound grief, we inform the demise of former prime minister of India, Dr Manmohan Singh, aged 92,” said a press statement by the All India Institute of Medical Sciences, where the ailing leader was admitted earlier in the day with complications.
The statement said he was being treated for age-related illnesses when he fell unconscious at home on Thursday. He was admitted to the hospital at 8.06pm and was declared dead at 9.51pm.
Also Read: How Manmohan Singh’s economic reforms changed India
Counted among India’s most erudite political thinkers, Singh was revered around the world for his academic acumen and won myriad accolades. As PM between 2004 and 2014, he instituted a string of social protection schemes that boosted rural wages and bolstered marginalised communities, stood his ground to forge the Indo-US civilian nuclear deal in 2008 that presaged a close relationship between the world’s two great democracies, and won global praise for his handling of the 2008 global financial crisis.
But the second half of his tenure was bruised by a blizzard of corruption allegations, policy paralysis, and deep dissension inside his government that tarnished his legacy and led him to famously pronounce that history will be kinder to him.
Also Read: Manmohan Singh, the astute economic thinker who leaves behind a lasting legacy
“India mourns the loss of one of its most distinguished leaders, Dr. Manmohan Singh ji. Rising from humble origins, he rose to become a respected economist. He served in various government positions as well, including as finance minister, leaving a strong imprint on our economic policy over the years. His interventions in Parliament were also insightful. As our Prime Minister, he made extensive efforts to improve people’s lives,” said Prime Minister Narendra Modi on X.
“Manmohan Singh ji led India with immense wisdom and integrity. His humility and deep understanding of economics inspired the nation…I have lost a mentor and guide. Millions of us who admired him will remember him with the utmost pride,” Leader of the Opposition in the Lok Sabha Rahul Gandhi said on X.
Born on September 26, 1932, in a village in the Punjab province in what is now Pakistan, Singh was an emblem of the extraordinary strides made by independent India. He studied at Panjab University, and then the University of Cambridge, where he earned a degree in economics, before going to Oxford to secure a D Phil. He said in an April 210 interview that he spent the first 10 years of his life in a dusty village with no doctor, school, electricity or clean drinking water. “In my childhood, I had to walk a long distance to go to school. I read under the dim light of a kerosene lamp,” Singh said. “I am what I am today because of education. I want every Indian child, girl and boy, to be so touched by the light of education.”
In 1971, Singh became the economic adviser in the commerce ministry before being appointed as the chief economic adviser in the Union finance ministry in 1972. He then served as the 15th RBI governor between 1982 and 1985. He was elected to the Rajya Sabha in 1991, and retired earlier this year on account of his frail health.
In 1991, then PM PV Narasimha Rao appointed Singh as the finance minister. With the economy lurching from one crisis to another, the fiscal deficit ballooning, decades of tepid growth hurting the poor and stymying investment, and a balance of payments crunch tarnishing India’s global reputation, Singh had his task cut out. His budget speech that June was a watershed moment that banished a generation of byzantine laws, yanked the country on to the global economic highway, and birthed the middle class. “No power on earth can stop an idea whose time has come. I suggest to this august House that the emergence of India as a major economic power in the world happens to be one such idea,” he said in the milestone address.
Known for his ability to broker compromises and genial nature that earned his respect across the political divide, Singh became India’s 14th PM in 2004 after then Congress chief Sonia Gandhi refused the position due to a controversy about her birth country.
As prime minister, Singh propelled a period of high growth while simultaneously helping build a shield of social protections with the right to education and information and the rural jobs scheme. In his first term, the reticent academic helped manage an unwieldy and chaotic coalition. His strongest moment as leader came ahead of the 2008 Indo-US nuclear deal that upset the Left and threatened his government. Undaunted, he pushed on with the deal that was the precursor to a strong bilateral relationship and managed to save his government by cobbling together support from regional outfits.
“I urge you to join us and strengthen our hands in our attempt to build a stronger and more open economy that is also committed to the principles of democracy and pluralism. India and the US are, in that sense, on the same side of history,” he wrote in HT in September 2004.
In the 2009 general elections, the Congress was buoyed by an unexpectedly strong performance that saw the party cross 200 seats – a showing attributed largely to Singh’s deft handling of the economy that sheathed it from the worst effects of the 2008 economic crisis that ravaged other developing countries.
But the wheels started coming off his administration shortly after its famous victory. As the ugly head of one corruption scandal after another – the Commonwealth Games scandal, the 2G scam, the coal block allocation case, among others – senior members of the government openly duked it out. The lack of a coherent response from the United Progressive Alliance only strengthened the perception that it was an administration in drift. Clad in his trademark sky-blue turban and white tunic, Singh still commanded respect for his erudition but was increasingly cornered in a system with dual power centres and seen as powerless. A string of terror attacks left him even more vulnerable, as did an anti-corruption protest by Anna Hazare that captivated young people and the 2012 December 16 gang rape case that galvanised women.
“Undoubtedly, history shall judge you kindly, Dr. Manmohan Singh ji!” Congress chief Mallikarjun Kharge said in a post on X.
“I mourn the loss of a lifelong senior colleague, a gentle intellectual and a humble soul who embodied the aspirations of India, having risen through the ranks with unwavering dedication. I am proud to have been a part of his Cabinet as Labour Minister, Railway Minister and Social Welfare Minister. A man of action rather than words, his immense contribution to nation-building will forever be etched in the annals of Indian history,” he said.
Still, his legacy will be burnished with many credentials, revolutionising the life of the ordinary citizen by unlocking the economy primary among them. As US President Barack Obama noted in his memoir, Singh was a man of uncommon decency and wisdom who was a “fitting emblem” of the progress made by India. “A member of the tiny, often persecuted Sikh religious minority who’d risen to the highest office in the land, and a self-effacing technocrat who’d won people’s trust not by appealing to their passions but by bringing about higher living standards and maintaining a well-earned reputation for not being corrupt.”
